Miller: America experiences a great surge of commercial development,
technological innovation, and industrial growth at the beginning of the 19th
century. You can't just declare it and say we had this fascination with
gadgetry, and technology has done so much for us, and we've become world
leaders. Well, how did that happen?

Masur: Well, the legal system changes dramatically in order to
encourage individualistic economic competition, precisely in this period. This
is also a story about winners and losers. I mean, somebody's paying for the
economic technological development of the nation. So you asked the question,
how do I do that, or how...

Miller: Today on A Biography of America, the energy, excitement,
and peril for "The Rise of Capitalism."